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Monthly Archives: May 2013

I survived the first week of The 5:2 Diet. Of course, my fast days were 1 and 3, so the 4 after that were pretty easy.

As I stated in my post the other day, I tried to keep my “feast” days somewhere between 2000-2400. That was pretty easy. I wouldn’t call it “eating whatever I want” because I “want to eat everything”, but it was still quite a bit of wiggle room. I was able to have lunch at Chic Fil A, make a trip to Lemonberry, etc.

My weight fluctuated during the week with the fast/feast days, obviously, so I am only counting my Monday weights as official. With that, I lost 2.6lbs the first week. Far far exceeded my expectations, especially after eating all what I did on the feast days.

My second day of fasting was a little harder than the first, but honestly, I think it’s just because I wasn’t as busy. Still the hunger came and went, so it wasn’t like a hunger was gnawing at me all day, but I was getting a little squirrely by 4pm.

The kids coming home and making toast definitely did not help. Toast smells super amazing when you haven’t eaten for 8 hours. LOL

Instead of making my salad at home, I had the Strawberry Poppyseed Whatever salad at Panera. It was actually 350 calories, so technically I was over by 50. But, I only had one cup of coffee (cream) instead of 2, and I put a little less feta in my eggs, so I think maybe I was closer to target than that. It was delicious and filling and physically satisfying. What I really wanted was that baguette, though. I took a big smell of it and threw it away. That was definitely harder than fasting the whole day. I love that bread!

I spent the rest of the evening obsessing about food and joking about whether or not I was allowed to set an alarm for 12:01am and eat a cupcake. The whole thing was silly, because I was NOT physically hungry. It is my emotional relationship with food that is the issue, for sure. I wanted to eat everything, but for no good reason other than comfort, I guess. I suppose one doesn’t get to be 100lbs overweight (only 20lbs currently) by having a healthy relationship with food. One step at a time.

I’m officially done fasting for week 1, and I will say THAT is a good feeling. Now I have to try to not eat back all the calories I cut over the next 4 days. I totally could, I know.

As of this morning, I was down 5lbs since Monday. Sadly, most of that will bounce back today. But, it was still nice to see that number, even for a fleeting moment. I will only count my Monday morning weights as “official”, but I’m still going to weigh in every morning because I’m a rebel like that.

I am sitting here typing this having been up for 90 minutes, and all I’ve had was my coffee. So even after all the dramatics last night, I didn’t hop out of bed and run straight for food. I plan on making a protein shake once the kids leave in 45 minutes. B

So, day 2 was an eating day. I expected to wake up ready to eat the world, but surprisingly I didn’t. It just seemed like any other day. Although I weighed a lot less (like 3.5lbs less). I knew much of it would come back the next day, but it was still encouraging. I guess from now I will just have to only count the Monday morning weight as “real”, since I’ll likely be fluctuating around quite a bit surrounding the fasting days.

I went about my business and didn’t eat breakfast until I’d been up for 2 hours, and even then I just had a Fiber One bar because I knew I was headed to the coffee shop to study. They have *the best* peanut buttery homemade granola bars, and I wanted one of those!

All told, I ate fairly ‘normally’. I didn’t go to BW3, even though I wanted to, but I did go out for Mexican with my son (I had fajitas) and Panera for dinner with my husband (my fave: Chopped Chicken Cobb with Avocado Salad). I had snacks throughout the day, and a couple pieces of chocolate covered toffee from Costco, and had no trouble staying around 2000. Yay.

I decided I’d target between 2000-2400 rather than trying to stick to one number or the other. That seemed to work well back in the day when WW gave you a range like that, so lets run with it.

I did start to wonder how wise I was to only put one eating day between my 2 fast days, but on the other hand, I like the idea of being free from Thurs-Sun, so we will see how it goes. Looking around the internet, I see that many people do Monday and Thursday, but my Friday run is too important to me to fast on Thursdays. And I WAS weakish yesterday. I tried to lift some weights but it was meh. Or maybe my heart just wasn’t in it. Could have been either.

So, today I fast again. Planning to eat the same meals I ate on Monday. Next week on Monday I’m going to replace the breakfast with a protein shake and see if that makes a difference. Seems like more protein would keep me full longer. But food is more emotionally satisfying. So, it’s hard to say.

Planning to run 3 miles this morning. Not sure how smart it is to burn off all the calories I eat, but I have to run some time. LOL

I’m not even lying when I say this: It wasn’t NEARLY as bad as I thought it would be.

I ate my breakfast around 8:45 and went about my day. I dropped my car off at the shop and walked home 3 miles. Later I walked another mile to pick up the rental. I drank a ton of water. I had a soccer game at 6:30pm. I was worried about how I’d be able to run, so I offered to be goalie. I ended up only playing goalie for half and field the second half, and actually felt fine (other than having to pee something fierce!).

I didn’t get home until 9pm to make my salad. So a full 12 hours between meals.

I’d say 2-3 times the hunger hit me a little, but within a few minutes (10 or so) it passed. I wasn’t even really that hungry for the salad. I could have gone without it. I forced myself to eat it, though.

All in all, it was an easy day. I think it was actually easier to just not eat all day than to try to figure out what I could have or couldn’t have, how many calories I had left, how many calories were in this or that and so on. I was barely hungry, and my energy level was fine. As an added bonus, I kept the water flowing, so I’m good and hydrated. I liked it! I’m actually looking forward to the next one – HOW WEIRD IS THAT, Y’ALL?

I figured now was a good time to get back into it as I’m starting a new diet this week and I know people will have questions. So, I’ll get them all down here, as best I can.

Up until now, I’ve been following (or not following, as has been the case the last month or 2) a 1600 calorie a day diet. If I worked out, I allowed myself to eat those calories, as well. It was working, and it was pressuring me into exercising more, but I was miserable. I always felt like I wanted to eat more, and that I couldn’t have what I wanted. Which is what led me to eventually throwing in the towel and just eating whatever and not keeping track. I still kept the fact that I’m fat in the back of my mind, and tried not to go all in and still make halfway decent choices, but you can imagine how that went.

A friend of mine from the running group, Dan, posted that he was doing a diet where he fasts 2 days a week and eats whatever the other 5. I gave it a “hmm” and then didn’t think too much more about it. I saw him the other day, eating a big ass Panera cinnamon roll, and asked him how it was going. He said he’d been at it 3 weeks, and was down 3 pounds, and he was currently eating a big ass cinnamon roll, so I became a little more interested. Especially as he doesn’t appear to have 3lbs TO lose. I’ve got a good 30.

Long story still long, I ordered the book. It’s a quick read, so I had it done in 2 evenings. It would have probably been one, but I read in bed and I’m old and fall asleep easily. At any rate, the science behind the fasting was interesting – it goes back to the days when we were always feast or famine and how our bodies aren’t made to be fed non-stop. Cell regeneration begins when the food stops, etc. I do like the idea of being healthier.

2410×7 days = 16870 calories per week. In order to lose 1 pound per week, I would cut that by 3500, giving me 13370, or 1910 per day. Side note: This might explain why I was miserable. Although, on exercise days, I DID eat 1900+ and still felt like I wanted to EATALLTHEFOOD.

If I were to change that around to eating 500 on Monday and 500 on Wednesday, that would leave me 12370 to eat the other 5 days, or 2474 per day.

Notice, the weekly consumption is the same. But with 2474 calories per day, I can actually eat, and eat well, and eat what I want. If I can manage to keep that at 2000 with the fast days and all the exercise, I’d probably be closer to 1.5 per week. With 30 to lose, I think that’s reasonable enough.

The big question becomes: How will this effect my running. That was the first question I asked Dan, who runs 3478x more than I do. And better. He said the day OF the fast, it goes ok because he runs in the morning before the fast would have had any impact. It’s the day after that is the problem. Since I normally run on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, I decided Monday and Wednesday would be my days to try it.

And that today would be an even better Monday to try it, since I don’t intend to run today anyway.

I decided, as the book recommends, a small breakfast and dinner to spend my 500. There are other ways to spread it out, but that felt like the best fit. I’m going to try to keep the breakfast around 200, and dinner 300.

No releases last week because I think I was still in the fetal position from iNSD. This week I just have some re-releases, but these pocket pages are some of my top sellers of all time, so maybe they’ll be welcome re-releases.

Here we go!

See you soon for more pages or kits or something – we’ll see how it goes. LOL

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Most of the scrapbook pages you will see here were made with products that I received for free. Several designers provide me with product in exchange for the pages that I make. However, I share these pages here, not out of contractual obligation, but because I love them, and I hope that perhaps they may inspire someone to document their own family memories. None of the designers/stores I create for require me to post on my blog, I do that by choice.